“Why don’t you hold your pail under, and catch the spouting?” said Lucy.
“Because,” said the girl, “I can’t wait long enough for it. So we have a cistern, which keeps always full, and we can dip it out of that.”
So saying, the girl went away towards the house, carrying the pail upon one side, and leaning her head and arm away over to the other. Lucy then thought that she would go and look around the yard, and see what else she could find.
She walked along towards the garden gate. “I knew,” she said to herself, “that Mary Jay would let me go in her garden, though Royal said she would not.”
She opened the gate, and walked in. She found many rows of corn, and beans, and other garden vegetables, but not many flowers. In the back corner were some large sunflowers, with great bumble-bees in them; and there were two or three apple-trees, with a great many apples growing on the branches. Some were red, and some were of a russet-brown.
Lucy liked the garden very much; but she began soon to think that it was time for her to go in. So she turned around, and began to walk back towards the garden gate. She was walking now in a path along on the opposite side of the garden from that in which she came in, and looking at some large gourds, which were growing by the side of it, when suddenly she heard a great buzzing near her. She looked up, and saw that there was a hive of bees under a little shed, by the side of the walk close before her.
Lucy was afraid to go by the bees, and so she turned back to go around some other way.
She found that she had to go quite to the backside of the garden, before she could get into another path, which would lead towards the gate. Here, just as she passed the end of a row of currant-bushes, her attention was attracted by a stile, or set of steps, made of boards, which was made to get over the fence by. Lucy thought that she would climb up upon the stile, and look over, and see what there was upon the other side.
She found that she could mount very easily; and, when she got up to the highest step but one, she could see over into the field beyond. It was a very pleasant place, and Lucy wished very much that she could go over. There was a path well beaten, which led down a gentle descent, until it turned around the point of a rocky precipice, and disappeared among the trees. Lucy wished very much that she knew where the path led to. She thought that she could see something down among the trees, glimmering like light, reflected from water.
But Lucy then thought that it was quite time for her to go in; and so she got down from the stile, and walked along towards the gate. By the route which she was now taking, she was led away from the bees, so that she reached the gate without any difficulty. Then she went in and took her place at her desk again.